1,100 Pounds of Matzo in Kathmandu: Welcome to the World's Largest Seder

In what has become an annual tradition, hundreds of Israeli travelers gather in Nepal to celebrate Passover -- with plenty of kosher wine.

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KATHMANDU, Nepal -- It was three hours to sundown before the
first night of Passover and the kitchen in this Kathmandu hotel was a steamy
mess. Bath tub-sized pots bubbled with matzo ball soup, 900 chicken hunks in
lava-like tomato sauce, and the googly eyes of a thousand boiled eggs.

The night before, a team of them had chopped onions and
peeled vegetables until one in the morning to help prepare the world's largest
Passover Seder, which takes place in Nepal's capital. More than a thousand
guests, mostly Israeli backpackers who flock to Nepal after their military
service, were expected for the holiday dinner that commemorates the Jewish
exodus from ancient Egypt.

Alon David, 24 with dark hair pulled into a ponytail, was
volunteering for his second Passover Seder in Nepal. "If you're not in Israel,
you should still make the atmosphere," he said, squinting through oniony tears.

I minced cautiously over the kitchen floor, which was dangerously
slick with water, grease and food scraps. Cauldrons of oil boiled menacingly at
knee level on extra gas burners set on the floor. Big plastic basins, the kind
used to wash clothes or babies, were piled high with diced purple onions and
tomatoes.

The chef, a 23-year-old Israeli with bright blue eyes,
needed another kosher pot. A young rabbinical student from France wearing a kippa skullcap fired up a blowtorch
attached to a large gas tank. Israel Negar, also 23, zapped a cauldron to
incinerate any traces of leavened ingredients, forbidden to eat during the
eight days of Passover, which ends this Saturday.

Aviv Hayun, the chef, had another problem. The oven hadn't
been made kosher. How, then, to keep the food warm? "Where to put a thousand
people's food?" he lamented. Moments later, the kitchen plunged into darkness.
Kathmandu, plagued by 12-hour power cuts, had shut out the electricity
unexpectedly.

When the hotel's generator kicked in, the cooks resumed
their race against sundown. Hayun works in catering in Israel, so the dinner
wasn't his largest event. "But it is the biggest mess I've seen," he sighed,
pushing back his hair.

The 1,100 people who attended the Seder in the hotel's
cavernous, chandelier-lit ballroom enjoyed endless plates of food - seven kinds
of salad, curried potatoes, stewed vegetables, fish, soup, chicken -- that
emerged from the kitchen. It was a massive guest list for a dinner that is
usually celebrated intimately at home. (In addition to young backpackers, some
older Israelis and families attended too).

Celebrants faced the extra challenge of making a kitchen
kosher in third world conditions, not to mention getting Passover supplies and
kosher ingredients to Nepal from Israel and the U.S. This year, 1,000 bottles
of kosher wine, 1,100 pounds of matzo, 150 pounds of salami, 180 pounds of oil,
hundreds of cans and jars of gefilte fish, tuna, olives, pickles, and other
kosher fare arrived from Israel and New York days before Passover.

Each year, a container of kosher supplies departs Israel a
few months before Passover. It travels by ship through the Suez Canal, chugs
around Sri Lanka, and arrives in the ports of Kolkata. From India, the goods
are trucked to Nepal.

In the days of Nepal's 10-year civil war from 1996 to 2006,
trucks of matzo en route to Kathmandu were routinely stopped by rebel and
government roadblocks. One time, rickety Nepali trucks broke down and kosher
supplies had to be helicoptered to Kathmandu in time for the holiday.

The tradition of the Kathmandu Seder begins with the steady
influx of young Israeli backpackers. They usually travel after their required stint
in the army, from age 18 to 21, and before university. About 10,000 Israelis
visit Nepal each year, said Hanan Goder, Israeli ambassador to Nepal, in a
phone interview. They tend to travel in groups, often for months at a time, and
are a close-knit community. Israeli influence is apparent in Nepal, from
restaurants that serve hummus and falafel alongside rice and dal, to the
aspirated sounds of Hebrew commonly heard in tourist areas.

There are two other seders in Nepal for Israeli and Jewish
travelers. One is in Pokhara, a city popular with tourists and trekkers at the
base of the Annapurna Circuit. The other Seder is in Manang, up in the
Annapurna Circuit, 3,540 meters high in the Himalayas. Boxes of matzo, wine,
and other provisions were helicoptered to trekkers in Manang from Kathmandu.

Rabbi Chezki Lifshitz, a 38-year-old with a bearded yet
cherubic face, heads the Kathmandu branch of Chabad, the Jewish organization
that organizes the Seder. In 1988, Chabad in Kathmandu organized the first
community Seder outside of Israel. Three hundred people attended. That number
swelled to a high of 1,800 in 2002. Globe-trotting Israelis and Jews "are
trying to keep their traditions with them even if they go far away," explained Lifshitz.

But why Nepal? As the gateway to the Himalayas, Kathmandu has
for decades catered to climbers and backpackers on a budget: $6 a night
guesthouses and $2 liter bottles of Everest beer still abound. Backpacking in
Nepal is practically a rite of passage for young Israelis and is often sandwiched
between travels to Thailand and India. (Another draw of Nepal, as well as
India, is locally grown marijuana.) Israel is not too far from south Asia,
which is relatively safe for traveling, yet distant and different enough to be an
exotic interlude from home.

Israelis come to Nepal to hike, river raft, bungee jump,
hang out in cafés, and generally let down their hair, often literally. During
military service "we have a crazy reality," said Yosi Saranga. The 22-year-old
Israeli was strumming a guitar and crooning Radiohead on the patio of Chabad
House, the Jewish community center here.

But in Nepal, "sab
kuch milega" he said brightly, translating the common Hindi phrase as
"Anything is possible," which could have been the motto in the lead-up to the
Seder. The preparations began the afternoon before at the Chabad House, when
its modest kitchen was made kosher by splashing hot water on countertops and
stoves, and papering surfaces with tin foil.

When an unseasonably heavy rain burst from the sky,
rabbinical students helping with the Seder from Israel, France, Brazil, and the
U.S. mounted cauldrons on plastic lawn chairs to blowtorch them on the roofed
porch. Vegetable peelers clicked like insects as big-haired Israeli backpackers
stripped carrots and football-sized zucchini under a leaking lean-to.

Inside Chabad House, lavender walls, red paper lampshades,
and napping Israelis sprawled on sagging couches, gave the place a college
clubhouse vibe. Buckets scattered across the floor caught leaks dripping from
the flimsy, corrugated roof.

At midnight, the newly kosher cauldrons were piled into tiny
Nepali taxis and taken to the hotel kitchen for the next day's cooking. The
pots clanged like bells as the taxi lurched into the rain-filled potholes
cratering Kathmandu's streets.

Early the next morning, food and supplies were ferried to
the hotel in those tiny taxis -- at least 35 trips back and forth.

By evening, the grandeur of the hotel's ballroom belied the
chaos in the kitchen earlier that day. Bottles of wine sat on tables covered
with white cloths. In the sea of Israelis, dreadlocks and hands covered with
henna designs were not uncommon. Those who didn't have kippas to cover their heads wore traditional Nepali topi hats instead (a bin of spare topis stood by the door).

Toward the end of the Seder, the dinner grew festively
raucous. Rabbi Lifshitz, dressed smartly in a black cap and knee-length coat,
jumped and gestured on the stage like a rock star as he led blessings and
songs.

After a few cups of requisite wine, many Israelis stood on
their chairs, singing and cheering. A young Jewish man from New Jersey surveyed
the rowdy crowd of young Israelis, who enjoy their reputation of knowing how to
party. "This is so Israeli," he said with amazement.

In an adjacent, smaller room, ornately decorated like a
Viennese ballroom, a more sober Seder was held in English for about 35
non-Israeli Jews. They hailed from New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Colorado,
Vancouver, and beyond. Toive Weizman, a Brazilian rabbinical student studying
in New Jersey, led.

Shamir Waldman, a 33-year-old Brazilian Jew working in Hong
Kong, was surprised at the Seder's customization for non-Israelis. "I've never
seen anything like that." He smiled, as if remembering he was in Nepal. "You
have to be flexible so everyone feels at home."

By the end of the evening, table cloths were bruised with
wine stains and heaped with plastic plates of leftover food. As the last guests
trickled from the room, the rabbinical students were tipsy from wine and
relief. In their dark suits and broad-brimmed hats, they milled around Rabbi Lifshitz.
He reposed horizontally across a few chairs, jacket off, collar loosened.